MH 606

Anyone my age (which I won't disclose at this time), and who grew up in the Mennonite church, should be familiar with Hymn 606 in The Mennonite Hymnal: the Mennonite National Anthem, "Praise God From Whom". There is something comforting about this old, rust colored hymnal, with its friendly shape notes dotting the pages from front to back. There is something comforting too, in sitting in the midst of a group of people, singing #606 in four part harmony. Most of the churches I was associated with during my college days switched from the old hymnal, published in 1969, to a new blue book . The blue hymnal still seems like the pushy new kid, and I have never warmed to it (not to mention the fact that "Praise God From Whom" was demoted to 118 or some such random number.)

Here is a clip of "Praise God From Whom" sung at the Mennonite Convention in Columbus this summer:



Mennonites are Anabaptist folks, typically not quite as conservative as our Amish cousins. But the values of "more with less", recycling, reusing, and preserving are as Mennonite to me as Hymn 606. I learned to can, freeze, and dehydrate food along side my mother as a girl, and I now feel some how inadequate if I don't accomplish some sort of food preservation every year (and boy, do we appreciate it every winter!)

For D, my dear, Mennonite friend, here is the recipe I use for sweet pickles. It is so easy and very tasty. The recipe comes from my preserving Bible: Putting Food By, edited by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg, and Beatrice Vaughan.


Sweet Pickle Chips
-makes 5 pints

Brining solution:
1 Qt distilled white vinegar
3 T salt
1 T mustard seed
1/2 c sugar

Canning syrup:
1 2/3 c distilled white vinegar
3 c sugar
1 T whole allspice
2 1/4 t celery seed

4# cucumbers (about 9 medium)

Wash and trim cukes, then cut into 1/4" slices. Mix brining solution in a large pot and add sliced cukes. Cover and simmer until the cukes change color from bright to dull green, stirring occasionally (about 5-7 minutes).

Mix together canning syrup and bring to a boil. Drain pickles and pack them, while still hot, into hot pint canning jars. Cover them with very hot syrup, leaving 1/2" head room. Remove air bubbles and adjust lids. Process in a Hot-Water Bath for 10 minutes, then remove jars. (Be sure to adjust for altitude!)


All of this sweet and pure domestic stuff is covering the irritation I am starting to feel after not being able to watch any television for 2 months. We cannot get any stations with rabbit ears, and the cables and antenna have yet to be connected. Judging from our DVD collection, we really don't need TV any time soon, although I really enjoy "The Mentalist", and L is missing her "Sesame Street". Here is a shot of some of the built-in shelving in the Great Room. This houses DVDs, and (on the kitchen end) cook books.

This is a shot of the Great Room. It is a tricky room to photograph during the day because of all the light coming in the windows. All those plants on the plant shelf were brought by my Mom. She has been saving starts of her plants for me for a long time, and even painted the pots she put them in! Thanks Mom!



Here is a close up of the built-in china cabinet, on the left, just outside of the Master Bedroom.
This close up is of the built-in entertainment center, on the right side, just outside of the Library.

And finally, I have re-started doing Yoga in the mornings. I should probably be going for a walk instead, but I am finding it a very calm way to start out the day. The girls like to do it too. Hopefully this is a routine that I can continue once school starts.

Polishing the Silver

I felt quite hoity-toity today putting away the china. This was JP's mother's set, and is very pretty and delicate appearing. It has been in storage for a long time: some of the pieces were wrapped in newspaper from Oregon in 1976! In any case, the china is seeing the light of day again, and has a new home in the built-ins in our great room. I am determined to use it too...if it's here, it has to be functional...that's my new rule.

But I diverge...I opened 5 boxes of china and other fragile doo-dads today, and put most of them away. This means we are to that point of dealing with the not-so-necessary things, the finishing touches: we're polishing up the silver. Hooray!

The building crew is finishing up too. Over the past several days, they finished up the trim on the beams in the front of the house...

...and the porch. They also cleared a truck load of stuff from off the porch and out of the garage.

The trim is finished up on the garage too, and a new light was installed by the door. Today they worked on leveling out the area in front to ready it for the concrete pad that should be poured the beginning of next week.

I finally got around to transplanting my tomato and pepper plants in 5 gallon buckets, which have been in abundant supply around here lately. They are finally blooming, so perhaps we'll even get fresh tomatoes and jalapenos this summer to make salsa.

The central vacuum was installed today. I used it downstairs, but haven't had a chance to use the hard floor attachment up stairs, or to try out my "vac pan" in the kitchen to suck up the stuff I broom up. This is the unit in the garage. The clearish bit underneath is what we will empty every couple of months. There is even a hook-up here, along with another hose and attachments to use on the vehicles in the garage!

Tonight, we watched fireworks from our deck...a late celebration! And now I plan to go to bed before midnight for once, and finally use my beautiful new shower in the morning.

Finally...Countertops!

I took 2 van loads of stuff up to the house today. At noon, they were still waiting on counter tops, but assured me that they were on their way. After dinner, the counter tops were in, along with sinks, cook tops, faucets, etc, etc.

The refrigerator door opens now, as you can see in the picture above. When the fridge was plugged in, however, it made a terrible racket, so now we need to take it back to Sears. Problem is, with the counter tops in, there is less than 33" to get the 33" fridge out. Why can't something just work right the first time for once?

The built-ins on the window wall of the Great Room are finished, and look sharp!

These bookshelves have the old oak mantel on top, and line the hip wall of the stairwell.

This is a shot of my craft area in the mud room. I can't wait to take advantage of all the storage and have room again to leave my scrapbook pages laid out! I've had to work on a TV tray table lately, which is not particularly conducive to coherent thought.

Tomorrow is U-Haul day, and Thursday the phone and DSL should be transferred, so my next post should be from the new house!

A SNAFU or Two

Snafu #1: Even though we didn't move last weekend, the mail began forwarding there starting on Friday. I sort of forgot about that when I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon! JP or I have been making daily trips out there to check the mail. Luckily everything has come in without problems, including the new checks.

Snafu #2: Apparently I asked the phone company to switch our phone & DSL over when I called to get a work order for the new phone lines. Forgot about that one too...so we lost phone on Monday, and DSL by Tuesday AM. On Monday, after spending about 30 minutes on my cell phone (and completely losing it, yelling "This not acceptable!"), I was assured that it would be restored by the end of the day. On Tuesday, after the internet went out, they got it turned back on in about an hour, with only 20 minutes on the phone. As of Monday, they still had not connected the phone lines to the house, although they brought it up the hill below the power lines.

Snafu #3: The propane contact person at CGI International finally got back in touch with JP yesterday. Since he complained that our driveway was too steep on Friday, he talked to his lawyers. They advised him that having us as customers is too great of a liability to assume, and they no longer want our business. (*&&%#$%^*^*&$) Now we are scrambling to find another company without lawyers.

Snafu #4: There was a snarling raccoon in a cage trap in our driveway when I arrived today. The builder told me they caught it in the cabinets...then laughed when my eyes bugged out and said his uncle caught it up the road. Not really a snafu I guess...

The house is all painted now. Can you believe that 2 of the guys painted the ENTIRE thing BY HAND??? Kudos to M & M!!! The railings on the deck and the porch look nice.

It is darker than we expected, but as you can tell by this shot next to the garage, it is actually really close to the color of the block.

Two of the built-ins in the Great room are nearly complete. This is the entertainment center in the corner by the Library.

This will be a china cabinet in the corner by our bedroom. There will be a plant shelf across the entire wall above these cabinets, then 2 more corner shelves up by the upper windows. These are for things that will get dusted once a year...if they're lucky!

Handy Guy S was out on Monday and did some more clearing where my parents plan to build. He took down a few more trees than he intended because they were rotten...he didn't want one to fall on the house down the road sometime.

I took another load of stuff from the apartment to the house. I'm glad to see it go!